We thank God constantly for this too, that when you received the word of the divine message from us, you took it not as a human word but for what it really is, the word of God. It proves effective in you believers,
and when they recognized the grace I had been given, then the so-called 'pillars' of the church, James and Cephas and John, gave myself and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. Our sphere was to be the Gentiles, theirs the circumcised.
(Saul quite approved of his murder.) That day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and everyone, with the exception of the apostles, was scattered over Judaea and Samaria.
where the people were more amenable than at Thessalonica; they were perfectly ready to receive the Word and made a daily study of the scriptures to see if it was really as Paul said.
On arriving at Jerusalem they were received by the church, the apostles and the presbyters, and they reported how God had been with them and what he had done.
As for him who is sown 'on good soil,' that is the man who hears the word and understands it; he bears fruit, producing now a hundredfold, now sixty, and now thirtyfold."